Alts for their own sake?

Full disclosure: I'm a recovering alt-oholic. For as long as I have been playing WoW, I have always felt the temptation to see how the other nine sides live. The sheer number of alts I rolled that never made it past level 20, or even level 15, astounds me sometimes. I used to go through a very predictable pattern with my alt-itis: I'd grow envious of one class, roll alt of that class, give it a profession I was envious of, play it, get board with it somewhere in the 10-15 range (or sometimes even before then), and repeat that process about six times, give or take. I would then have a mini existential crisis where I would look at that screen of alts and wonder, "Why do I keep rolling alts that I never play? No more of this!" I would then log in to each alt individually, sell all of their stuff, send the money to my main, and delete them. I would then promise to myself that I would not roll another alt without having a good reason to do so. I have gone through this whole process at least four times thus far, enough times to have gained some insight into how and why it happens.

One thing that is consistent with most of the alts I roll is that I never roll them for the sake of just leveling them. In most cases, what motivates me to roll an alt is the desire to use that alt in end-game content. It's usually jealousy of that class's abilities and perceived strengths that draws me away from my druid. Perhaps a class looks fun to play as a DPS, or perhaps the class's healing or tanking style looks more varied than my druid's and thus more engaging. Inevitably, though, I realize that it will likely take me months to reach that point (that point being level 80), and I realize that I will likely never be able to use my alt for group content. (What's that you say? Run dungeons on the way to 80? Um... no.) And with the possibility of using that alt for level cap content gone, my motivation to level it goes as well.

So it seems the issue is a disjunction between my motivation for rolling the alt in the first place and the amount of effort I am willing to put up with to get it there. After all, when you roll an alt, you start with a very small selection of that class's abilities, and if the goal is to play the class because of the class's playstyle, it's disheartening to only be able to start with a skeleton of that playstyle (it's really just the ribcage, if we want to stick with that metaphor). That's part of the reason that I've always thought that a good middleground between the people who want to be able to start alts at level 55 and the people who think we shouldn't be able to do that would be the ability for us to start our alts at level 20. That way, you skip the most boring levels and start at the point where most classes start to come into their own and feel like the class they are. In other words, you could skill the lol-smite/lol-wrath/lol-judgment stages in which the classes are incredibly boring to play. But that's a topic for another time.

Of course, the obvious answer is to just roll an alt for the sake of playing the alt, for the sake of experiencing the class as it evolves and comes into its own. My most successful alt, my shaman, who is now level 66, was rolled for exactly this reason, which is part of the reason why I have stuck with him for so long. So why isn't this enough of a motivator for me to stick with an alt? Why isn't playing an alt for its own sake enough to motivate me to roll an alt?

I think it has something to do with the issue of meaning. Perhaps in WoW, as in life, we desire a meaning for our actions, a motivating factor to motivate us to play. Fun can certainly be that motivating factor, but I see fun in WoW as similar to happiness in real life: they're both one answer to the question of what to live for, but for some, they are insufficient answers, not enough to make all it worth it. Perhaps you don't know what I mean, but maybe some of you reading this do; maybe you have experienced the dissatisfaction with living for day-to-day experiences rather than for something greater. Life isn't constantly enjoyable, so living only for the moment can backfire when that moment isn't a particularly good one.

Alts are the same way. They are certainly fun, but some parts of the leveling process are just plain grueling, including the lol-phases listed above, the 40-50 stretch, quest items with aggravatingly low drop-rates, etc. In those moments, it can be easy to forget the fun times you had with your alt and the fun times you will have if you continue playing. That's where that long-term goal comes in. That long-term goal is what will keep you playing through those uninteresting stretches, because achieving that goal will make it all worth it.

So the real question becomes, are those long term goals necessary, or are the fun moments themselves enough motivation to keep playing one's alt? I guess this is just a question that every player needs to answer for themselves.